Buffett Blasts Obama’s Bank Tax

Jan 20, 2010

RUSH: Warren Buffett, people are wondering why are the markets down today? Everybody expected the markets to be up. Could it be these next two sound bites? Warren Buffett on Squawk Box, the host, Joe Kernen, said, ‘We got so many things to go over here. I think of Wells Fargo, I think about the bank tax. Is that a good idea to pay for the GM bailout with a bank tax, Mr. Buffett?’

BUFFETT: No, I don’t understand that. I mean it’s some kind of a guilt tax or something of that sort because banks were among the whole United States that was saved back in 2008. The government’s made a lot of money off Wells, they made a lot of money off Goldman, they made a lot of money off J.P. Morgan. And where they’re going to lose money — well, at least where it’s possible to lose money is in the auto companies. So if you’re really looking for the people that benefited from government losses, you’d have to look there. Or if you look at Fannie and Freddie, I mean, you know, are you going to go and tax the members of Congress who ran Freddie and Fannie?

RUSH: Whoa! What a 180. This is a guy who was in the back pocket of Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm, and now Warren Buffett is dumping all over the bank tax. He still doesn’t understand, ‘Is it some kind of a guilt tax?’ No, it’s populism. He thinks everybody hates the banks, he’s trying to get people on his side by thinking they have the same enemy. After saying we had to save them, Mr. Buffett, we had to make ’em profitable, now he’s going after their profit. So Joe Kernen said to Buffett, ‘Well, that’s exactly what I said, you can almost tax any company in business that wasn’t going to be able to float any commercial paper, you could tax them too. Warren, don’t give them any ideas because that will be next.’

BUFFETT: What was done in the fall of 2008 was designed to save the American economy. It wasn’t designed to save the banks, it wasn’t designed to save me, it was designed to save 309 million Americans, and a good job was done. They’ve paid it back with huge interest. The government’s made a lot of money on that. And to say that they should be paying for the fact that the government lost a lot — or may lose a lot of money on Freddie and Fannie and perhaps with the auto companies, it just doesn’t make any sense to me. I just think a tax that’s enacted with the idea that it will — the headlines will be appealing and that, you know, a certain amount of vengeance will be achieved, I don’t think that’s the greatest form of tax policy.